YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE.

Observer, Volume 3, Issue 73, 4 February 1882, Page 328

YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE.

By WILKIE COLLINS — fA%ir£T ?f-"-?? le Moonstone.^ « The Woman in White" etc).

THE SECOND EPOCH IN ME. COSWAYS LIFE. Fouk years elapsed before the Albicore returned to port from which lie liad sailed. In that interval the deaths of Cosway's parents liad taken place. The lawyer who managed his affairs during his absence from England wrote to inform him that his inheritance from his late father's " estate " was eight hundred a-year. His mother only possessed a life interest in her fortune ; she had left her jewels to her son, and that was all. Cosway's experience of the life of a naval officer on a foreign station (without political influence to liasten his promotion) had thorotighly disappointed him. He decided on retiring from the service when the ship was " paid off." In the meantime, to the astonishment of his comrades, he seemed to be in no hurry to make use of the leave granted him to go on shore. The faithful Stone was the only man on board who knew that lie was afraid of meeting his " wife." This good friend volunteered to go to the inn, and make the necessary investigation, with all needful prudence. " Four years is a long time, at her age," he said. " Many things may happen in four years." An hour later, Stone returned to the ship, and sent a written message on board, addressed to his brother-dfficer, in these words : — " Pack up your things at once, and join me in the boat." " What news ?" asked the anxious husband. ■ Stone looked significantly at the boatman, and only answered, " Wait till we get ashore." " Where are we going ?" " To the railway station." They got into an empty carriage ; and Stone at once relieved his friend of all further suspense. " Nobody is acquainted with the secret of your marriage but our two selves," he began quietly. " I don't think, Cosway, you need go into mourning." " You don't mean to say she's dead !" "I have seen the -letter which announces her death," Stone replied. "It was so short that I believe I can repeat it word for word : — ' Dear Sir, — We have received information of the death of your wife. Please address your next and last payment, on account of the lease and goodwill of the inn, to the executors of the late Mrs Cosway.' There — that it is the letter. ' Dear Sir ' means the present proprietor of the inn. He told me your wife's previous history in two words. After carrying on the business with her customary intelligence for more than three years, her health failed, and she went to London to consult a physician. There she remained under the doctor's care. The next event was the appearance of an agent, instructed to sell the business in consequence of the landlady's declining health. Add the death at a later time, and there is the beginning and the end of the story. Fortune owed you a good turn, Cosway, and Fortune has payed the debt. Accept my best congratulations." Arrived in London, Stone went at once to his relations in the North. Cosway proceeded to theoffice of the family lawyer (Mr Atherton), who had taken care of his interests in his absence. His father and Mr Atherton had been schoolfellows and old friends. He was affectionately received, and was invited to pay a visit the next day to the lawyer's villa at Richmond. " You will be near enough to London to attend to your business at the Admiralty," said Mr Atherton, " and you will meet a visitor at my house, who is one of the most charming girls in England— the only daughter of the great Mr Bestall. G-ood heavens ! have you never heard of him ? My dear sir, he is one of the partners in the famous firm of Benshaw, Bestall, and Benshaw." Cosway was wise enough to receive this last piece of information as quite conclusive. The next day Mrs Atherton presented him to the charming , Miss Eestall, and Mrs Atherton's youngest married daughter (who had been his playfellow when they were children) whispered to him — half in jest, half in earnest — " Make the best use of your time j she isn't engaged yet." Cosway shuddered inwardly at the bare idea of a second marriage. Was Miss Bestall the sort of woman to restore ids confidence ? She was small and slim and dark — a graceful, well-bred, brightly intelligent person, with a voice exquisitely sweet and winning in tone. Her ears, hands, and feet were objects to worship ; and she had an attraction, irresistibly rare among the women of the present time — the attraction of a perfectly natural smile. Before Cosway had been an hour in the house, she discovered that his long term of service on foreign stations had furnished Mm with subjects of conversation which favourably contrasted with the commonplace gossip addressed to her by other men. Cosway at once became a favourite, as Othello became a f avourite in his day. The ladies of the household ,all rejpiced in the young officer's success, with the one exception of Miss Eestall's companion (supposed to hold the place of her lost mother, at a large salary), one. Mrs Margery. Too cautious to commit herself in words; this lady expressed doubt and disapprobation by her looks. She had white hair, iron-grey eyebrows, and protuberant eyes ; her looks were unusually expressive. One evening she caught poor Mr Atherton alone, and consulted him confidentially on the subject of Mr Cosway's income. This was the first warning which opened the eyes of the good lawyer to the nature of the "friendship " already established between his two guests. He knew Miss Bentall's illustrious father well, and he feared that it might soon be his disagreeable duty to bring Cosway's visit to an end. On a certain Sunday afternoon, while Mr Atherton was still considering how he could most kindly and delicately suggest to Cosway that it was time to say good-bye, an empty carriage arrived at the villa. A note from Mr Bestall was delivered to ifrs Atherton, thanking her with perfect politeness for her kindness to his daughter. " Circumstances," he added, "rendered it necessary that Miss Bestall should return home that afternoon." ** The " circumstanes " were supposed to refer to a garden-party to be given by Mr Eestall in the ensuing week. But why was his daughter wanted at home before the day of the party ?

The ladies of the family entertained no doubfe that Mrs Margery had privately communicated with Mr Bestall, and that the appearance of the carriage was the natural result. Mrs Atherton's married daughter did all that could be done : she \ got rid of Mrs Margery for one minute, and so j arranged it that Cosway and Miss Bestall took leave of each other in her own sitting-room. The young lady appeared in the hail with her veil down. Cosway escaped to the road and saw the last of the carriage as it drove away. In little more than a fortnight, his horror of a second marriage had become one of the dead and buried emotions of his nature. He stayed at the villa until Monday morning, as an act of gratitude to his good friends, and then accompanied Mr Atherton to London. Business at the Admiralty was the excuse. It imposed on nobody. He was evidently on his way to Miss Bestall. " Leave your business in my hands," said the ' lawyer, on the journey to town, "and go and I amuse yourself on the Continent. I can't blame j you for falling in love with Miss Bestall ; I ought to have foreseen the danger, and Avaited till she had left us before I invited you to my house. But I may at least warn you to carry the matter no further. If you had eight thousand instead of eight hundred a year, Mr Bestall would think it an act of presumption on your part to aspire to his daughter's hand, unless you had a little to throw into the bargain. Look at in the true light, my dear boy ; and one of these days you will thank me for speaking plainly." Cosway promised "to look at it in the true light." The result, from his point of view, led him into a change of residence. He left his hotel and took a lodging in the nearest by-street to Mr Bestall's palace at Kensington. On the same evening he applied (with the confidence due to a previous arrangement) for a letter at the neigh- i boiu'ing post-office for a letter, addressed to j E. C. — the initials of Edwin Cosway. " Pray be j careful," Miss Bestall wrote ; "I have tried to get you a card for our garden-party. But that hateful creature, Margery, has evidently spoken to my father ; I am not trusted, with any invitation cards. Bear it patiently, dear, as I do, and let me hear if you have succeeded in finding a lodging near us." Not submitting to this first disappointment very patiently, Cosway sent his reply to the postoffice, addressed A. B. — the initials of Adela Bestall. The next clay the impatient lover opplied for another letter. It was waiting for h! i, but it was not in Adela's handwriting. Hud their correspondence been discovered ? He opened the letter in the street, and read, with j amazement, these lines : — " Dear Mr Cosway, my heart sympathises with two faithful lovers, in spite of my age and my duty. Pray don't betray me, and don't pay too marked attention to Adela. Discretion is easy. There will be twelve hundred guests. Your friend, in spite of appearances. — LotriSA MabGERY." How infamously they have all misjudged that excellent woman ! Such was the natural conclusion at which Cosway arrived. He went to the party a grateful, as well as a happy, man. The first persons known to him, whom he discovered among the crowd of strangers, were the Athertons. They looked, as well they might, astonished to see him. Fidelity to Mrs Margery forbade him to enter into any explanations. Where was i that best and truest friend ? With some difficulty he succeeded in finding her. Was there any impropriety in seizing her hand, and cordially | pressing it ? The result of this expression of j gratitude was, to say the least of it, perplexing. Mrs Margery behaved like the Athertons ! She looked astonished to see him, and she put precisely the same question, "How did you get here?" Cosway could only conclude that she was joking. " Who should know that, dear lady, better than yourself?" he rejoined. " I don't understand you," Mrs Margery answered sharply. After a moment's reflection, Cosway hit on another solution of the mystery. Visitors were near them, and Mrs Margery had made her own private use of one of Mr Bestall's invitation cards. She might have serious reasons for pushing caution to its last extreme. Cosway looked at her significantly. " The least I can do is not to be indiscreet," he whispered — and left her. He turned into a side walk ; and there he met j Adela at last ! Is seemed like a fatality. S7ie looked astonished ; and she said, " How did you get here ?" No intrusive visitors were within hearing this time. "My dear!" Cosway remonstrated, "Mrs Margery must have told you, when she sent me my invitation." Adela turned pale. " Mrs Margery ?" she repeated. " Mrs Margery has said nothing to me ; Mrs Margery detests you. We must have this cleared up. No ; not now — I must attend to our guests. Expect a letter ; and, for heaven's sake, Edwin, keep out of my father's way. One of our visitors whom he particularly wished to see has. sent an excuse — and he is dreadfully angry about it." She left him before Cosway could explain that he and Mr Bestall had thus far never seen each other. He wandered away towards the extremity of the grounds, troubled by vague suspicions ; hurt at Adela's cold reception of him. Entering a shrubbery, which seemed intended to screen the grounds, at this point, from a lane outside, he suddenly discovered a pretty little summer-house among the trees. A stout gentleman, of mature years, was seated alone in this retreat. He looked up with a frown. Cosway apologised for disturbing him, and entered into conversation as an act of politeness. "A brilliant assembly to-day, sir." The stout gentleman replied by an inarticulate sound — something between a grunt and a cough. " And a splendid house and grounds," Cosway continued. The stout gentleman repeated the inarticulate sound. Cosway began to feel amused. Was this curious old man deaf and dumb ? "Excuse my entering into conversation," he persisted. " I feel like a stranger here. There are so many people whom I don't know." The stout gentleman suddenly burst into speech. Cosway had touched a sympathetic fibre at last. " There are a good many people here whom I

don'fc know," he said gruffly. " You are one of them. What's your name ?" "My name is Cosway, sir. What's yours ?" The stout gentleman rose with fury in his looks. He burst out with an oath ; and added the intolerable question, already three time repeated by others, " How did you get here ?" The tone was even more offensive than the oath. " Your age protects you, sir," said Cosway, with the loftiest composure. " I'm sorry I gave my name to so rude a person." " Bude ?" shouted the old man. " You want my name in return, I suppose ? You young P U PPJ> you shall have it ! My name is Eestall." He turned his back, and walked off. Cosway took the only course now open to him. He returned to his lodgings. The next, no letter reached him from Adela. He went to the post-office. No letter was there. The day wore on to evening — and, with the evening, there appeared a woman who was a stranger to him. She looked like a servant ; and she was the bearer of a mysterious message. " Please be at the door that opens on the lane at ten o'clock to-morrow morning. Knock three times at the door — and then say " Adela." Someone who wishes you well will be alone in the shrubbery, and will let you in. No, sir ! I am not to take anything ; and lam not to say a word more." She spoke and vanished. Cosway was punctual to his appointment. He knocked three time ; he pronounced Miss Restall's Christian name. Nothing happened. He waited a while, and tried again. This time Adela's voice answered strangely from the shrubbery in tones of surprise : — " Edwin ! is it really you ?" " Did you expect anyone else ?" Cosway asked. " My darling, your message said ten o'clock — and here I am." The door was suddenly unlocked. " I sent no message," said Adela as they confronted each other on the threshold. In the silence of utter bewilderment they went together into the summer-house. At Adela's request, Cosway repeated the message, and described the woman who had delivered it. The description applied to no person known to Miss Restall. " Mrs Margery never sent you the invitation ; and I repeat, I never sent you the message. This meeting has been arranged by some one who knows that I always walk in the shrubbery after breakfast. There is some underhand work going on " She checked herself, and considered a little. "Is it possible ?" she began, and paused again. Her eyes filled with tears. "My mind is so completely upset," she said, " that I can't think clearly of anything. Oh, Edwin, we have had a happy dream, and it lias come to an end. My father knows more than we think for. Some friends of ours are going abroad to-morrow — and I am to go with them. He means to part us forever — and this is his cruel way of doing it ! She put her arm round Cosway's neck, and lovingly laid her head on his shoulder. With tenderest kisses they reiterated their vows of eternal fidelity until their voices faltered and failed them. Cosway filled up the pause by the only useful suggestion which was now in his power to make — he proposed an elopement. Adela received this bold solution of the difficulty in which they were placed, exactly as thousands of other young ladies have received similar proposals before her time, and after. She first said positively No. Cosway persisted. She began to cry, and asked if he had no resjject for her. Cosway declared that his respect was equal to any sacrifice, except the sacrifice of parting with her forever. He could, and would, if she preferred it, die for her, but while he was " alive he must refuse to give her up. Upon this, she shifted her ground. Did he expect her to go away with him alone ? Certainly not. Her maid could go with her, or, if her maid was not to be trusted, he would apply to his landlady, and engage " a respectable elderly person " to attend on her until the day of their marriage. Would she have some mercy on him, and just consider it? 1 No : she was afraid to consider it. Did she prefer misery for the rest of her life ? Never mind his happiness ; it was her happiness only that he had in his mind. Travelling with unsynvpathetic people ; absent from England, no one could say for how long ; married, when she did return, to some rich man whom she hated — would she, could she, contemplate that prospect ? She contemplated it through tears ; she contemplated it an accompaniment of sighs, kisses, and protestations — she trembled, hesitated, gave way. At an appointed hour of the coming night, when her father would be in the smoking-room, and Mrs Margery would be in bed, Cosway was to knock at the door in the lane once more ; leaving time to make all the necessary arrangements in the interval. The one pressing necessity, under these circumstances, was to guard against the possibility of betrayal and surprise. Cosway discreetly alluded to the unsolved mysteries of the invitation and the message. " Have you taken anybody into our confidence?" he asked. Adela answered with some embarrasroent. " Only one person," she said — " dear Miss Benshaw." " Who is Miss Benshaw ?" " Don't you really know, Edwin ? She is richer even than papa — she has inherited from her late brother one half -share in the great business in the City. Miss Benshaw is the lady who disappointed papa by not coming to the garden-party. I was very miserable, dear, when they took me away from Mr Atherfcon's. She happened to call I the next day, and she noticed it. "My dear," she said (Miss Benshaw is quite an elderly lady now), "I am an old maid, who has missed the happiness of her life, through not having a friend to guide and advise me when I was young. Are you suffering as I once suffered ?" She spoke so nicely — and I was so wretched — that I really couldn't help it. I opened my heart to her." Cosway looked grave. " Are you sure she is to be trusted ?" he asked. " Perfectly sure." " Perhaps, my love, she has spoken about us (not meaning any harm) to some friends of hers ? Old ladies are so fond of gossip. It's just possible — don't you think so ?" Adela hung her head. " I have thought it just possible myself," she admitted. " There is plenty of time to call on her to-day. I -will set our

doubt at rest, before Miss Benshaw goes out for her afternoon drive." On that understanding they parted. Towards evening, Cosway's arrangements for the elopement were completed. He was eating his solitary dinner when a note was brought him. It had been left at the door by a commissioner. The man had gone away without waiting for an answer. The note ran thus : — "Miss Benshaw presents her compliments to Mr Cos way, and will be obliged if he can call on her at nine o'clock this evening, on business whic'i concerns himself." This invitation was evidently the result oi:' Adela's visit earlier in the day. Cosway presented himself at the house, troubled by natural emotions of anxiety and suspense. His reception was not of a nature to compose him. He was shown into a darkened room. The one lamp on the table was turned down low, and the little light thus given was still further obscured by a shade. The corners of the room were in almost 'absolute darkness. A voice out of one of the corners addressed him in a whisper : "I must beg you to exctisc the darkened room, lam suffering from a severe cold. My eyes are inflamed, and my throat is so bad that I can only speak in a whisper. Sit down, sir. I have got news for you." " Not bad news, I hope ma'am ?" Cosway ventured to inquire. " The worst possible news," said the whispering voice. " You have an enemy striking at you in the dark." j Cosway asked who it was, and received no answer. He varied the form of inquiry, and asked why the unnamed person struck at him in the dark. The experiment succeeded ; he obtained a reply. "It is reported to me," said Miss Benshaw, " that the person thinks it necessary to give yo\i a lesson, and takes a spiteful pleasure in doing it |as mischievously as possible. The person, as I happen to know, sent you your invitation to the party, and made the appointment which took you to the door in the lane. Wait a little, sir ; I have not clone yet. ' The person has put it into Mr Restall's head to send his daughter abroad tomorrow." Cosway attempted to make her speak more plainly. " Is the person a man or a woman ?" he said. Miss Benshaw proceeded without noticing the interruption. " You needn't be afraid, Mr Cosway ; Miss Eestall will not leave England. Your enemy is i all-powerful. Your enemy's object could only be 1 to provoke you into planning an elopement — and, I your arrangements once completed, to part you and Miss Restall as effectually as if you were at opposite ends of the world. Spiteful, isn't it ? And, what is worse, the mischief is as good as done already." Cosway rose from his chair. "Do you wish, for any further explanation ?" asked Miss Benshaw. " One thing more," he replied. " Does Adela know of this ?" "Wo," said- Miss Benshaw; "it is- left to you to tell her. 1 ' There was a moment of silence. Cosway looked at the lamp. Once roused, as usual with men of his character, his temper was not to be trifled with. | " Miss Benshaw," he said, " I dare say you think me. a. fool ; but I can draw my own conclusion, for all that. You are my enemy." The only reply was a low chuckling laugh. All voices can be more or less effectually disguised by a whisper — but a laugh carries the revelation of its own identity with it. Cosway suddenly threw off the shade over the lamp, and turned up the wick. The light flooded the room, and showed him — His Wife. THE THIRD EPOCH XT MB COSWAY'S MPE. Three days had passed. Cosway sat alone in his lodging — pale and worn : the shadow already of his former self. He had not seen Adela since the discovery. The one way in which he could venture to make the inevitable disclosure was by letter. Through Mi' Atherton (to whom he had once revealed his jjosition) he was enabled to make enquiries at Mr Restall's house. The answers simply informed him that Miss Restall was suffering from illness. The landlady came into the room. •' Cheer up, sir," said the good woman. " There is better news of Miss Restall to-day." He raised his head. " Don't trifle with me !" he answered fretfully ; tell me exactly what the servant said." The landlady repeated the words. Miss Restall had passed a quieter night, and had had been able for a few hours to leave her room. He asked next if any letter had arrived for him. No letter had arrived. If Adela definitely abstained from writing to him, the conclusion would be too plain to be mistaken. She had given him up and who could blame her ? There was a knock at the street-door. The landlady looked out.- "Here's Mr Stone come back, sir!" she exclaimed joyfully — and hurried away to let him in. Cosway never looked vij) when his friend appeared. " I knew I should succeed," said Stone. " I have seen your wife." "Don't epeak of her!" cried Cosway. ''I 1 should have murdered her when I first saw her face, if I had not {instantly left the house. . I may be the death of the wretch yet, if you persist in speaking of her !" Stone put his hand kindly on his friend's shotilder. " Must I remind you that you owe something to your old companion ?" he asked. "I left my father and mother, the morning I got your letter — and my one thought has been to serve yptu Reward me. Be a man, and hear what it is your right and duty to know After that, if you like> we will never refer to her again." Cosway took his hand, in silent acknowledgement that he was right. They sat down together. Stone began. " She is so entirely shameless," he said, " that I had no difficulty in getting her to speak. She so cordially hatos you that she glories in her own falsehood and treacheiy. In the first place, I may tell you that she has a certain right) if slid pleases, to call herself " Miss Benshaw." She is really the daughter of the man who founded the

great house in the City. With every advantage that wealth and position could give her, the perverse creature married one of her father's footmen. From that moment her family disgraced her. With the money procured by the .sale of her jewels, her husband took the inn which we have such bitter causes to remember — •and she carried it on after his death. So much for the past. We may now pass over a long Jlapse of years, and get to the time at Avhich you ■and I were on the South American station, be- , ginning to think of the happy day when our ship ■would be ordered back to England. At the date ■at which we have now arrived, the last surviving ■member of our f ainily— her elder brother — lay at the point of death. He had taken his fathers place in the business, besides inheriting his. father's fortune. The loss of his wife (leaving no children) rendered it necessary that he .should alter his will. He deferred performing this duty. It was only at the time of Jus last illness that he had dictated instructions for a new will, leaving his health (except certain legacies to old friends) to the hospitals of Great Britain and Ireland. His lawyer lost no time in carrying out the instructions. The new will was ready for signature (tbe old will having been destroyed by his own hand), when the doctors sent a message to say that their patient was insensible, and might die in that condition. He did die in that condition. Your wretched wife .as next-of-kin, succeeded, not only in the future, i but (under the deed of partnership) to her late ■brother's place in the firm : on the easy condition of resuming the family name. She calls herself '; Miss Benshaw." But as a matter of legal necessity she is set down in the deed as "" Mrs Cosway Benshaw." Her partners only now know that her husband is living, and that you are the Cosway whom she privately married. 'Will you take a little breathing-time ? or shall I go on, and get done with it ?" Cosway signed to him to go on. "She doesn't in the least care," Stone proceeded, "for the exposure. "I'm the head partner," she says, "and the rich one of the "firm ; they daren't turn theiv back on Me." You remember the information I received — in perfect good faith on his part — from the man who now keeps the inn ? The visit to the London and the assertion of failing health, were adopted as the best means of plausable severing the lady's connection (the great lady now !) with a calling so unworthy of her as the keeping of an inn. Her neighbours at the seaport were all deceived by the stratagem, with two exceptions. They were both men — vagabonds who had pertinaciously tried to delude her into marrying them in the days when . she was a widow. They refused to believe in the -doctor and the declining health ; they had their - own suspicion of the motives which had led to the sale of the inn, under very unfavourable circumstances ; and they had decided on going to London, inspired by the same base of hope of making discoveries which might be turned into a means of extorting money. Their contemplated victim proved equal to the emergency. The attorney whom she had employed to manage the sale of the lease and goodwill of the inn was not above •accepting a handsome private fee. He wrote to the new landlord of the inn, falsely announcing his client's death, in the letter which I repeated to you in the railway carriage on our journey to London ; and he deluded the two inferior rogues, when they ventured to make inquiry at his office. You and I were deceived, in our turn, by the lawyer's letter. Your natural conclusion that you were free to pay your addresses to Miss Eestall, and the poor young lady's innocent confidence in ' Miss Benshaw's' sympathy, gave this unscrupulous woman the means of playing the heartless trick on you which is now exposed. Malice and jealousy — I have it, mind from her.self ! — were not her only motives, ' But for that Cosway,' she said (I spare you the epithet which *she put before your name) ' with my money and position, I might have married a needy lord, and : sunned myself in my old age in the full blaze of the peerage.' Do you understand how she hated you, now ? Enough of this subject ! The moral of it, my dear Cosway, is to leave this place, and try what change of scene will do for you.. I have -time to spare ; and I will go abroad with you. When shall it be ?" " Let me wait a day or two more," Cosway pleaded. . Stone shook his head. " Still hoping, my poor friend, for a line from Miss Eestall? You distress me." " Are you not expecting too much ?" ! " You wouldn't say so, if you were as fond of her as I am," They were silent. The evening slowly darkened ; and the landlady came in as' usual with the •candles. She brought with her a letter for . Oosway. He tore it open ; read it in an instant 5 •and devoured it with kisses. His highly wrought feelings found their vent in a little allowable exaggeration. " She has saved my life !" he said, as he handed the letter to Stone. It only contained these lines : — ".My love is yours, my promise is yours. Through all trouble, through all profanation, through the hopeless separation that may be before us in this world, I live yours — and die yours. My Edwin, may G-od bless and comfort you. THE BOTJRTH EPOCH IN MB COSWAY' S LIFE. The separation had lasted for nearly two years, when Cosway and Stone paid that visit to the which is recorded at the outset of the present narrative. In the interval, nothing had been heard of Miss Eestall, except through Mr -Atherldn. He reported that Adela was leading a very quiet life. The one remarkable event had ■been an interview between " Miss Benshaw" and herself. No other person had been present ; but the little that had been reported placed Miss "Eestall's character above all praise. She had forgiven the woman who had so cruelly injured lass ! The two friends, it may be remembered, had travelled to London, immediately after completing the fullest explanation of Cosway's startling behaviour at the breakfast table. Stone was iiot by nature a sanguine man. " I don't believe in our luck," he said. " Let us be quite sure that we are. not the victims of another deception." The accident had happened on the Thames;

and the newspaper narrative,proved to be accurate in every respect. Stone personally attended the inquest. From a natural feeling o£ delicacy towards Adela, Cosway hesitated to write to her on the subject. The ever helpful Stone wrote in his place. After some delay, the answer was received. It enclosed a brief statement (communicated officially by legally authority) of a last act of malice in the house of Benshaw and Company. She had not died intestate, like her brother. The first clause of her will contained the testator's graceful recognition of Adela Eestall's Christian act of forgiveness. The second clause (after stating that there were neither relatives nor children to benefit by the will) left Adela Eestall mistress of Mrs Cosway Benshaw's fortune — on the one merciless condition that she did not marry Edwin Cosway. The third clause — if Adela Eestall violated the condition — handed over the whole of the money to the firm in the City, " for the extension of the business, and the benefit of the surviving partners." Some months later, Adela came of age. To the indignation of Mr. Eestall, and the amusement of the "Company," the money actually went to the firm. The fourth epoch in Mr Cosway's life witnessed his marriage to a woman who cheerfully paid half a million of money for the happiness of passing her life, on eight hundred a year, with the man whom she loved. But Cosway felt bound in gratitude to make a rich woman of his wife, if work and resolution could do it. When Stone last spoke of him, he was reading for the Bar ; and Mr Atherton was waiting to give him his first brief. Note : — That " most improbable" part of the present narrative, which is contained in the division called The First Epoch, is founded on an adventure which actually occurred to no less a person than a cousin of Sir Walter Scott. In Lockhart's delightful " Life," the anecdote will be found as told by Sir Walter to Captain Basil Hall. The remainder of the present story is entirely imaginary. The writer wondered what such a woman as the landlady would do, under certain given circumstances, after her marriage — and here is the result.

It is a -well recognised scientific fact that the distribution of light and heat on the surface of the earth is at present very unequal and inconvenient. It will be the aim of the promoters to utilise the raw material of the sun and moon for the profitable development of all the lands on the snrface of the earth by the judicious investment of capital and the application of the requisite skill, which the promoters will be in a position to supply. The cost of the necessary appliances has been estimated by competent astronomers at £40,000,000, and the balance of the capital to be raised will be reserved for working expenses. The promoters reserve to themselves 20,000,000 fully paid-up shares, in consideration of the invention and the exclusive agreement already made with the inhabitants of the moon. The advantages offered to shareholders in the association are as follow : — 1. The extraction of cucumbers from sunbeams. 2. An exclusive right to live, non-shareholders being killed off by dai'kness, cold, starvation, and the monopoly of the sunlight and moonlight, without which existence will become insupportable. 3. The proper development of the waste lands. 4. Adequate moonshine for moonlight excursions. 5. Economy in fuel and clothing. 5. A great stimulus to agriculture. 7. The draining of swamps like the Piako by the concentration of the sun's rays thereon. 8. The manufacture of food constituents by a combination of caloric with moonshine. 9. Prevention of eclipses of the sun and moon. [The above communication has been forwarded to us by an anonymous correspondent at the Whau, accompanied by the following note : — . " Dear Mr Editor, — Having been studying some of the beautiful prospectuses recently issued in New Zealand, I thought I would try my 'prentice hand at one that for grandeur of conception, boldness of design, and magnitude, would be the boss monopoly of the age. I have no doubt that those who are better acquainted with the art of drafting these things than I profess to be will